


less accurate than a stopped clock

by seventhstar



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Different First Meeting, Bad Matchmaking, Language Barrier, M/M, Matchmaker Phichit Chulanont, Mistaken for Being in a Relationship, Mutual Pining, Not Actually Unrequited Love, Oblivious Katsuki Yuuri, Pining Victor Nikiforov
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-01
Updated: 2018-07-01
Packaged: 2019-05-31 13:29:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,248
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15120395
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seventhstar/pseuds/seventhstar
Summary: In which Viktor thinks Yuuri is dating Phichit, Yuuri thinks Viktor is in love with Phichit, and Phichit thinks he's getting free brunch.Only one of them is right. Guess who.





	less accurate than a stopped clock

**Author's Note:**

  * For [akisazame](https://archiveofourown.org/users/akisazame/gifts).



As they make their way down to the banquet, Yuuri acts like he’s being marched to a guillotine: fists clenched, jaw tight, eyes wide. Phichit can’t figure out what his deal is. Yeah, it sucks that Yuuri missed being on the podium by two points because his anxiety got the best of him, but Yuuri didn’t seem that unhappy about it until a couple hours ago. He and Phichit were joking about smuggling Vicchan to Detroit, and then Phichit went to the bathroom, and when he caught up with Yuuri, bam! He was upset.

“Hey, cheer up.” Phichit elbows Yuuri in the side. “You still have All-Japan to redeem yourself. And your Viktor will be here tonight, you can finally get an autograph.”

Yuuri blanches. “Oh, god.”

“...what?”

“He didn’t recognize me,” Yuuri mumbles.

Phichit stares at him, certain he’s misheard. There are only six competitors in this competition. There’s no way Viktor doesn’t know who Yuuri is.

“What do you mean?”

“I saw him while you were in the bathroom, and he didn’t know who I was. He thought I was a fan.”

“Should we kill him?”

“What? Phichit,”  Yuuri says. “I don’t—it’s my fault for—”

“Whoa, whoa, if Viktor literally can’t remember his competitors he’s a dick and you should be mad about it, not moping. Hold up.” Phichit fixes Yuuri’s hair with his fingers and straightens his tie. “You want me to do your makeup?”

“Why?”

“So you can kill him with your eyes?”

Yuuri just looks confused. Phichit decides that’s good enough, Yuuri clearly doesn’t understand how to get revenge, so he drags him into the bathroom in the lobby and pulls out the tiny makeup kit in his pocket.

“Because we are friends, I will let you use my mascara and then immediately throw it away.”

“That’s gross,” Yuuri says as he takes off his glasses. Phichit applies the mascara much more heavily that Yuuri would, until every blink looks coquettish. Then he applies the liner—glossy, black, sharp enough to cut—and dabs lip gloss onto Yuuri’s mouth. “Phichit, there’s glitter in this.”

“Glitter is your friend. We’ve talked about it.”

“Glitter is _your_ friend, maybe. Every time I get glittery I end up naked on someone’s rooftop or something.”

“Look, do you want to fuck Viktor up or not?”

“I don’t want to fuck him up.”

“Fine, just seduce him and get it out of your system. Don’t bring him back to our room.”

“This is a terrible idea,” Yuuri says, but Yuuri always says this so Phichit ignores him. He puts the makeup case away after checking his eyeliner, which is fine. There’s nothing to be done about Yuuri’s tie, or that the fact that he looks like he’s about to embrace sweet death, but at least he’ll have the veneer of someone who has it together.

Phichit is sure that once Yuuri is out there, and distracted by sponsors, he’ll be okay. And if he isn’t, Phichit can always cause a distraction so he can sneak out.

“Ready?”

“Okay.” Yuuri puts his glasses back on. “Thanks for coming out here with me…”

“Hey, no problem. Good practice for when I’m competing.” Phichit pats him on the back.

The banquet is a little crowded, with inoffensive music playing softly in the background and people in formalwear milling around in small groups. There’s champagne. Phichit snags himself a flute and sips; it’s not terrible. Yuuri downs his in one go like a shot. The server gives him a scandalized look; Yuuri responds by putting his empty glass back on the tray.

“Oh, that’s the Mizuno guy,” Yuuri says. “I should go talk to him.”

“I’m gonna go sell myself. Later?”

“Mm.”

So Phichit wanders around. He subtly hints at sponsors that he would make a great face for their brand, snaps pictures of himself, makes small talk with ISU officials, and catches up with some friends from Juniors. He’s in the middle of a heated discussion about what constitutes a good curry when he catches sight of Viktor Nikiforov.

Viktor’s talking to Christophe, laughing, dressed sharply in grey. Phichit finds Yuuri, standing on the other side of the room, staring at the wall in a way that suggests he’s trying not to look at Viktor. In a just world, Yuuri would saunter past Viktor, give him bedroom eyes, and then say something absolutely devastating. But that is not going to happen.

“Hmm,” Phichit says. “Excuse me.”

He can be the arbiter of justice, right? Right.

“Hey, Chris!”

“Phichit, hello. Viktor, this is Phichit.”

“The Juniors Worlds bronze medalist two years ago—yes, I remember.” Viktor holds out a hand to shake.

How likely is it that Viktor knows who Phichit is but not Yuuri? Impossible. Huh, Phichit thinks.

“Are you here supporting Yuuri?” Chris asks.

“Yeah, I figured he could use the boost since his family couldn’t make it. Besides,” Phichit makes eye contact with Viktor, “some of the skaters here are rude.”

“Yes, he is, isn’t he?” Viktor says. “I tried to talk to him earlier, but he wouldn’t even speak to me.”

 _Yeah, that does sound like Yuuri,_ Phichit thinks. _Turning his idol trying to talk to him into an insult, oh my god._

“That doesn’t sound like Yuuri,” he lies. “Hey, nice to meet you.”

Phichit makes a brief detour so it looks less obvious, and then claps Yuuri on the shoulder.

“Just talked to Viktor, he thinks you were ignoring him, he keeps looking at you—no, don’t look at him.”

“He thinks I was…?”

“Yup.”

“I should...go clear that up.”

“You absolutely should.” And because Phichit is the best bro, he hands Yuuri another flute of champagne. Yuuri drinks it like it’s water and he’s in the desert. Then he squares his shoulders and walks away.

Phichit helps himself to a bunch of miniature quiches, watches long enough to see Yuuri, blushing, shake Viktor’s hand, and pats himself on the back for a job well done. Then he spots a rep from a sponsor he’s dying to have and goes over to introduce himself. He’s looking forward to a quiet, productive evening.

 

* * *

 

The Sochi Grand Prix Final’s banquet turns out to be the loudest, wildest banquet Viktor has ever attended.

First, Yuuri Katsuki comes over and apologizes, haltingly, for not saying hello earlier. He turns faintly pink during this conversation, and Viktor notices that close up, there are flecks of gold in his eyes. They make light conversation about the hotel, and the weather, and then Viktor gives in to his natural urges and shows Yuuri the pictures of Makkachin wearing fuzzy sweaters. Yuuri looks at all of them, even the ones that are identical because Viktor got too excited and hit the shoot button seven times in a row.

Then he asks if Viktor wants to see his poodle.

Viktor always wants to see pictures of poodles. Yuuri’s dog is tiny, a toy poodle with brown fur and large eyes, who looks like he’s asleep in half the pictures Yuuri shows him. Vicchan apparently falls asleep everywhere: under tables and on them, in corners, on top of piles of folded laundry, on Yuuri’s childhood bed, and on one adorable occasion, curled up in an empty tray between tea cups.

“Wow,” Viktor gushes. “Vicchan is a cute name. What does it mean?”

“Uh,” Yuuri says. He turns pink again. “Here, have some champagne.”

“That’s a weird name for a dog.”

“That’s not—anyways.”

The champagne is awful, but Viktor drinks the flute Yuuri presses into his hands. Yuuri downs his without pausing to breathe, which is...definitely suggestive.

“This is my first time at the Grand Prix Final.”

“The first of many, I hope.” Viktor toasts with with his half-full glass. Yuuri looks wistfully at his empty flute and snags a second one, which he drinks with the same alacrity as he did the first. “The banquet is the easiest part, don’t worry. They’re usually boring.”

“Really?”

“Do you see anything interesting happening here?”

Yuuri looks around. Mostly what happens at the banquet is schmoozing, with a side of getting to talk to fellow skaters and ease relations with officials. Viktor thinks of it more like a chore than anything else, these days. Yuuri, on the other hand, looks like a little lost lamb.

“...no?”

“You see? It’s nothing.”

Yuuri doesn’t look convinced. So Viktor has to stay close to him. Just out of pure human kindness. Also because Yuuri’s flush is deepening and frankly, he’s getting more attractive the more Viktor looks at him.

“Well, why don’t we go for a walk,” Viktor says. He puts a hand on Yuuri’s back and pushes him along. Yuuri stares at him with an expression of bewilderment as Viktor steers him out of the banquet hall through the kitchen, where he stops to coax a waiter into giving him three bottles of the good champagne.

“Charge it to my room,” Viktor says, and he hands the waiter a wad of bills and winks. The waiter shrugs and hands over the alcohol, which Viktor then makes Yuuri carry.

The hotel’s outdoor space is a few square meters of grass, ringed by hedges and with a firepit in the center. Miraculously, the fire is burning and there’s wood piled at hand. Even better, there’s only one bench near the fire, so they end up sitting huddled close together.

“We should have grabbed a bottle opener,” Viktor bemoans.

Yuuri pries the bottle open. With his teeth.

“Ack.”

“Right, sorry, you probably don’t want to drink out of this.”

Viktor yanks the bottle out of his hands and drinks directly from it.

“...or we could do that.” Yuuri takes the bottle back and takes a pull. “This is way better than what they were serving in there.”

“The banquet champagne is always dreadful.”

“Really?”

“Really. Best to bring a flask if you want to drink something worthwhile.”

Yuuri eyes him skeptically. “Do you have a flask under there?”

“No.”

“Oh, okay.”

“Chris has it.” Viktor takes the bottle back and drinks. “Drink up! I want to have a plausible reason to not go if Yakov comes looking.”

He passes Yuuri the bottle. Yuuri stares at him, then at the bottle, then at him again. He drinks.

 

* * *

 

“Okay, so I’m going in for the double axel, right? I’m going in—and bam, I go too hard and it turns into a triple instead.”

“Wow! Amazing!”

“It was sick.”

“You were sick?”

“No, I—never mind. Tell me about your quad flip again.”

“Well, someone said I’d never do it, and obviously I knew then I would…”

 

* * *

 

“This is Makkachin when she was one year old. And this is Makkachin when she was one and a half years old. And this is Makkachin, but on her second birthday! I made her a hat.”

“Not so fast, I have to appreciate them.”

“Did you know they don’t sell birthday cakes for dogs? I had to pay a bakery to make her one especially. Out of steak.”

“I did that with Vicchan! Only with bacon. Vicchan loves bacon. He steals all of it.”

“Makka steals food too!”

“It’s like they’re twins!”

 

* * *

 

“Do you dance?”

“Yes?”

“Great!”

 

* * *

 

“I mean, you park on a driveway, but you drive on a parkway. Do they have this shit in Russian?”

“Why is ‘the’ a word? Why do we need it?”

“And they have sushi made of peanut butter and jelly. I wanted to die.”

“And they put french fries with everything!”

“Wait, you don’t like french fries?”

“Who does?”

 

* * *

 

“Viktor, you should come to Japan and visit our hot springs. It’s hot, and steamy, and really...really...you should definitely come.”

“I—”

“And then you can teach me all your jumps!”

“Uh—”

“It’s a date!”

 

* * *

 

The morning after the banquet, Viktor is still giddy.

It was incredible. So incredible that Viktor gives in and lies in bed for an hour after he normally gets up. What an evening. He danced, he laughed, he avoided having to politely hint at sponsors that no amount of money would get him to put out—

“Yuuri Katsuki,” Viktor says out loud.

Towards the end of the night, as the champagne had run out and they’d started to flag, Viktor had had the presence of mind to give Yuuri his phone number and insist he text Viktor immediately.

 **yuuri:** <3

He stares at the message and sighs. Yuuri promised to text him today, so now he just has to wait. Viktor really should get up and start preparing to travel, but fuck it, all his things are packed already. He can afford, just this once, to lie. Viktor hasn’t lain in bed for this long and enjoyed it in years. If he had Makkachin, it would be perfect.

“Hmm,” Viktor muses out loud as he reaches across the bedside table to snag a protein bar. “Is it too much if I text him now?”

It’s six am.

“Probably.”

He pulls up Instagram. To his surprise, there’s nothing official. Yuuri is appears often in Phichit’s posts; sometimes posing with him, sometimes looking away in candid shots. He wears exclusively Mizuno exercise gear. He lets Phichit’s hamsters sit on his head and is seen in more than one shot petting a random dog. Viktor smiles, despite himself, and switches to Twitter.

Again, there’s no official account, but Yuuri is mentioned in other people’s tweets. There’s the official ISU and JSF tweets. There’s tweets from fellow skaters. And there are a few tweets from what seem to be Yuuri’s friends in Japan—the account is called sukeota3sisters—in Japanese, but with promising shots of Yuuri and Phihcit poledancing in tiny shorts.

Viktor’s brain doesn’t actually work for several minutes.

Then he realizes he doesn’t have to imagine anything—these tweets are on the internet. He can use Google Translate. Grinning to himself, Viktor rolls onto his back and copies the text of the tweets into the box before hitting translate.

_Yuuri and his lover on the pole. Don’t they look hot?_

Viktor drops his phone on his face. _Lover? How can he have a lover? He spent most of yesterday coming onto me?!_

_...didn’t he?_

People are usually more...direct when they hit on Viktor. Viktor though Yuuri was different, but...maybe he is just a fan excited to meet his idol. Maybe what Viktor felt was entirely one-sided. Hadn’t Phichit come over to scope Yuuri out? Was he jealous? _Oh, god._ Does Yuuri think he’s a homewrecker?

“This is fine,” Viktor decides. It is not, in fact, fine.

 _Great meeting you and Phichit last night,_ he texts Yuuri. _Can you pass me his number? I know a bit about ice shows._

A few agonizing minutes later, while Viktor is holding a pillow over his face and debating whether to go find a pool and do a couple laps, Yuuri texts him back.

 _It was nice to meet you too,_ it reads. _Phichit’s number is 867 444 6969. [dog.png]_

Attached to the text is a photo of Yuuri’s tiny poodle, mouth full of bacon, too perfect for words.

Viktor sighs, very deeply, and drags himself out of bed. He packed his swim trunks and his flight leaves in the afternoon; he might as well start burning off all that champagne now.

 

* * *

 

 

Yuuri is relieved, after the banquet, that Viktor does not hit on him anymore and tactfully never refers to all the times Yuuri drunkenly hit on him. Relieved. He is not disappointed. What’s there even to be disappointed about? Viktor texts him constantly, about everything.

“What’s with that face?”

“Nothing,” Yuuri mumbles. He puts his phone away; he sent Viktor a link to footage of one of Ciao Ciao’s old programs and is waiting on his response. “Ready?”

“Yeah, let’s go.”

He and Phichit are meeting with their other rinkmates to continue their monthly tradition of bad movie night. This month they’re watching something called Sex Lives Of The Potato Men, which is frankly an insult to Yuuri’s second-favorite carbohydrate. What did potatoes do to anyone? What other food is good fried, mashed, baked, sauteed, and roasted? What other root vegetable can compare to the mighty potato in terms of sheer deliciousness? None of them.

Viktor doesn’t like french fries, Yuuri recalls. What absolute lunacy. But he has introduced Yuuri to the wonders of beetroot, which looks like a severed piece of liver but tastes quite good, even raw.

They catch the bus to one of their rinkmate’s places. Yuuri takes a seat on the floor by the couch, cuddling a bowl of popcorn he definitely should not eat in his lap as he crams it in by the handful. The movie is both gross and boring; his mind drifts.

There is nothing to be disappointed about. He and Viktor are getting along shockingly well, considering. Viktor even confided in him after hearing about Mari that he always wanted a sibling. They talk about skating, and choreography, and coaching styles, and sponsorships, and food. Viktor described to him the audiobook he was listening to during his afternoon cross training. Yuuri told Viktor about the episode of Black Mirror that made him cry.

The movie is awful. He munches more popcorn and wonders which of his rinkmates purchased the fat free kind. _Just buy the movie theater butter,_ he thinks. _You know you want to._

His phone buzzes. Yuuri slides it out of his pocket and checks; it’s Viktor.

 **vitya:** oh my god what is this

 **vitya:** what is he doing to his hair? can you find out and tell me?

 **vitya:** i have some old video of yakov wait hang on

 **vitya:** [yakov.mp4]

 **yuuri:** what the fuck

 **yuuri:** this is the worst thing i’ve ever seen???

 **vitya:** whenever yakov tries to argue with me i just show him this video

 **vitya:** works every time

 **yuuri:** why hasn’t he killed you

 **vitya:** i have won a gold medal or 2 ;)

 **vitya:** what are you doing?

 **yuuri:** movie night but it’s really bad

 **yuuri:** 0/10

 **vitya:** we should go see a movie yuuri

 **vitya:** i haven’t been to the theater in years

 **yuuri:** yeah we should go

Yuuri hesitates. He starts to type. _its a date._ Is it too much? Should he say it? He’s about to hit send when Viktor texts him again.

 **vitya:** and you should invite phichit

This is another thing about Viktor that Yuuri likes. He always asks about other people when they talk—about Yuuri’s family, and about Celestino, and about Phichit. Viktor and Phichit text as well, Yuuri thinks, mostly about shared business interests. Apparently Phichit wants to run his own ice show—who knew?

 **yuuri:** yeah i will

He does not examine any lingering disappointment he might feel about Viktor wanting Phichit along. There’s no reason why he and Viktor need to be alone. Except for Yuuri’s ridiculous and unceasing crush. There’s that.

After the movie is over, he and Phichit trek back to their apartment. Phichit goes straight to his room, citing a need to check on his hamsters and exhaustion; Yuuri lies on the sofa, brain buzzing, too tired to even drag himself in the direction of his room, where he has a bed and cleanish pajamas available.

He can’t stop thinking about Viktor. It’s a problem.

_Should I say something?_

“Ugh,” Yuuri says, and makes the mistake of consulting the internet.

**How To Tell If A Guy Likes You Over Text**

**Take The Quiz: Does He Like You?**

**How old is he?**

That one’s easy. Yuuri has Viktor’s birthday set as the PIN for his phone.

**How old are you?**

**Who calls and texts more?**

Yuuri has to actually scroll back through his text history. He and Viktor text each other, but they also have a group chat with Phichit (which was, oddly enough, Viktor’s idea). Yuuri is a bit nervous about initiating; Viktor texts him more often.

**Does he ever go out of his way and inconvenience himself for you?**

Viktor has helped Yuuri out a bit—looking at footage of Yuuri’s salchow, listening to him cry about his dog. And he’s been helping Phichit, as well, giving him advice and contacts. _Really,_ Yuuri thinks, _he’s helped Phichit more than me._

**Does he make you wonder if he even cares about you sometimes?**

_Yes,_ Yuuri thinks, _but that might just be my brain being bad._ He clicks “Never” because Viktor is nice.

**Does he remember your birthday?**

Yuuri’s birthday isn’t until November—it’s passed—so he’s not surprised Viktor has never brought it up.

**Who pays for dates?**

They haven’t had any dates. But Viktor did buy him champagne at the GPF.

**Do you go on dates often? If you never reached out to him, would you ever see each other? Are you official on Facebook? How often do you feel abandoned by him? What are you guys? Do you argue a lot? Does he do what he says he’s going to do or not? What do you want him to feel about it?**

Stymied by the number of questions, and horribly aware that they’re clearly meant for people who are actually in relationships, not just pining, Yuuri rushes through them. What does he want Viktor to feel? God. He barely can admit it to himself, let alone this online quiz.

The website wants Yuuri’s email and name to give him his “personalized and unique results”. Yuuri shudders, before typing in the fake email he uses to create social media accounts to follow Viktor secretly. The email arrives instantly. **You scored a 90 out of 130, it reads. He’s into you, but not that into you.**

Well, “he’s into you” is still more than Yuuri expects.

He sighs as he reads through all the signs that guys apparently give when they like you. Does Viktor offer to help him with things? Text him daily? Discuss meeting up in person? Send him flirty emojis? Okay, that last one can’t be real. Chris ends every text he sends Yuuri with either an eggplant or a peach, and he has a steady boyfriend; clearly he’s not hitting on Yuuri, he’s just…Chris.

Sure, Viktor sends Yuuri heart emojis and winky faces, and he offered to help Yuuri with things, and he texts multiple times a day, but he does those things in the group chat, too. It’s not like it’s exclusive to Yuuri. By this quiz’s logic, Viktor could be into Phichit.

…could he?

No.

That’s ridiculous.

Is it? Yuuri sighs. It’s not like there’s anything wrong with Phichit. There’s a lot right about Phichit. Phichit always has dates and people trying to date him. He’s really good at parties, and taking pictures, and putting on makeup, which are all things Viktor likes. Come to think of it…

He opens up the text conversation between himself and Viktor, and does a search for Phichit’s name. Sure enough—Viktor mentions Phichit every day. Heart pounding, Yuuri does a second search, for the word “date”.

Phichit’s name comes up every time. Even that one time Yuuri was talking about fruit.

“Holy shit,” Yuuri says. He turns off his phone—it is way too late for him to process this—and goes to bed.

 

* * *

 

Yuuri tries very hard not to think about it. It’s probably all in his head, anyway. What does he know? It was three am. No one has good ideas at three am.

Except that now that the idea has come into his head, he can’t stop noticing evidence that it’s true.

Every mention of meeting Viktor in real life is inevitably followed by either Viktor asking him to invite Phichit, or Viktor immediately inviting Phichit himself in the group chat. Yuuri goes back through Phichit’s Instagram and Viktor has liked hundreds of Phichit’s posts. And—the most damning thing of all—Yuuri casually asks Phichit if Viktor ever messages Phichit directly, and Phichit says, “Nah, barely. Just for business stuff.”

Why would Viktor constantly talk about Phichit and then not talk to him? He talks to Yuuri perfectly normally.

Yuuri considers broaching the idea with Phichit, just to see his reaction, but it feels presumptive. He hasn’t asked Viktor how he feels directly, and he would hate to ruin it somehow. No, Yuuri decides, what he needs to do is encourage Viktor to say something to Phichit directly.

First, he tries leaving their group chat, citing the stress of the competitions as an excuse. But when he checks Phichit’s phone discreetly two weeks later, nothing’s happened. Next, Yuuri tries, awkwardly, to bring up the subject of romance with Viktor. But while Viktor will wax lyrically about romance in the abstract forever—Yuuri has no idea there were so many romance novels in the world—the moment his personal life comes up, Viktor dodges the question. Finally, Yuuri does what he promised himself he wouldn’t do: he confides in Phichit and pretends it’s a hypothetical question, because when he asked Yuuko and Takeshi, they both assumed he was talking about himself, and frankly Minako scares him.

“Hey,” Yuuri says, going for casual and instead sounding like he’s doing a Georgi Popovich impression, “If someone liked you, would you want them to tell you over text or in person?”

“Oh, are you finally telling Viktor—”

“This is a hypothetical! For a friend!”

“Is the friend you?”

“No!”

“…right. You should do it in person so you can’t run away.”

“Okay.”

Viktor agrees to meet the two of them for brunch after the competition. Yuuri makes a reservation, plots his escape route, and hopes Phichit reciprocates Viktor’s feelings.

 

* * *

 

At Worlds, the night before the free skate, Yuuri runs into Viktor at the ice machine. He’s filling a bucket, dressed in his pajamas, sweaty from practice and doing anxiety crunches. Viktor is also carrying a bucket, but he’s still in his dinner clothes and flawless, because of course he is.

Yuuri skipped dinner because he was panicking. He regrets that now.

“Yuuri!”

“Hey.”

“I heard you weren’t feeling well.”

Right, Phichit had gone to dinner. Yuuri is silently grateful he covered for him. “Yeah, I—I just needed rest.”

“I’m not surprised, you skated so well today.”

“Thanks.”

“It’ll be interesting to see what happens tomorrow.”

“Yeah.” Yuuri swallows as he finishes scooping ice into his bucket, and sets it aside. He takes Viktor’s empty bucket from his hands and starts shoveling ice into it. “It’ll…yeah. Good luck tomorrow.” He swallows. “You, uh, you were really good today.”

“Thank you.”

Viktor is standing very close to him. Is he cold? Yuuri can hear him breathing. If he turned around, he’d run into him—their noses might brush—Yuuri might—

“We should go.”

“Yes.” Viktor recoils from him.

“I have to go to bed! Haha. Skating tomorrow. I’ll see you at brunch!”

“Good night,” Yuuri hears Viktor say, behind him, as he flees down the hall. It’s not until he reaches his room that he realizes he still has both buckets of ice.

 

* * *

 

 

It’s not that Phichit came to Worlds prepared to murder Viktor Nikiforov, but he did ask Ciao Ciao about his mob connections. (Ciao Ciao patted him on the head and told him not to worry. That’s a yes. Ciao Ciao is in the mob.) He’s not even sure that Viktor has done something wrong, because Yuuri has a gift for decimating social interactions, but Best Friend Loyalty means he’s obligated to kill Viktor even if Yuuri is wrong.

After the GPF, Phichit had bet it would take a few weeks at most before they were secretly dating. He’d anticipated a lot of loveick sighing from Yuuri over his phone, or having to overhear phone sex, or for Yuuri to ritually burn all his merch as a sacrifice to the Viktor gods or whatever. He’d expected that eventually, Yuuri would realized Phichit had hooked him up with Viktor Nikiforov and Phichit could lord it over him forever.

And instead…

Well, Phichit’s not sure, to be honest. Yuuri’s been weird about the entire thing. He’s obviously talking to Viktor constantly, but it really does seem to be just talking. The one time Phichit had asked Yuuri if he and Viktor were dating, Yuuri had tripped over the coffee table and then insisted…that Viktor really liked Phichit. And they keep inviting Phichit to do things with them! Inviting Phichit! Phichit loves Yuuri and he thinks Viktor is going to be a valuable friend but he does not want to go out with them while they stare thirstily at each other.

(Also, Yuuri is apparently getting emails from vixendaily.com now, which is also extremely weird. What is Viktor saying to him?)

Phichit seriously considers ditching the two of them at brunch after Worlds—Phichit just won a bronze medal and is swimming in sponsors and pride—but Yuuri is clearly anxious, and also Phichit is kind of a nosy hoe, and hey! Free brunch! Mimosas!

“Are you wearing that?”

Yuuri is wearing leggings. Phichit is wearing a nice sweater. They stare at each other.

“Right, let’s just—okay.”

They hail a cab outside the hotel. Yuuri fidgets the entire ride, checking his phone like he’s in the lottery for Hamilton tickets or something.

“What?”

“Have you ever thought about dating?”

Phichit stares at him. “Look, he ditched the banquet to hang out with you and he liked every single picture of you on my Instagram—”

“That’s not—you’ll see.”

The cab idles at the curb. Yuuri leads the way into the restaurant. It’s mostly empty; Viktor’s distinct hair is visible on a table out on the balcony. The hostess leads them back. Viktor has ordered drinks already, thank god.

“Hi,” Phichit says.

“Hello,” Viktor says.

“Cool, I’ll just leave,” Yuuri says, and then he runs away.

There is a long, long silence, as Phichit pours himself a mimosa and Viktor stares longingly in the direction Yuuri fled.

“So,” he says, figuring that Viktor will fold if Phichit just pretends he knows everything.

“Listen, it’s not what you think. Nothing happened.”

“I—what?”

“I was just getting ice! I invited you to brunch!”

“What?”

“I’m not a homewrecker.”

 _Lured by free brunch,_ Phichit thinks as Viktor leans over the table with wide eyes. _Never again. What the fuck._

“Okay, that’s cool,” Phichit says, “but what are you actually—” His phone buzzes.

 **yuuri:** did he ask you out???

 **phichit:** why would your boyfriend ask me out

Then Viktor’s phone buzzes. Phichit holds out a hand. “Okay, give me that.”

 **yuuri:** you should ask him out hes single

Phichit blinks.

“Did you—did you tell Yuuri you were in love with me?”

“Why would I tell him I was in love with his boyfriend?”

“I’m not Yuuri’s boyfriend, Viktor, you’re Yuuri’s boyfriend.”

“…what?”

“Both of you are dumb. He probably went running, pay for these mimosas and go after him.”

“Wait—you’re not—”

“He’s really good at running, you’re going to lose him.”

Viktor throws some money on the table and sprints out of the restaurant like he’s on fire. It’s a lot of money. Phichit flags down a waiter; never mind his diet, this is a situation where he deserves pancakes.

 **phichit:** so viktor thought we were dating

 **yuuri:** what

 **phichit:** i enlightened him so dont have sex in our hotel room

 **yuuri:** no promises

 

* * *

 

**phichit+chu**

[bigdamnkiss.jpg]

my son finally got his man! #victuuri

 **ykatsuki:** phichit delete this  
**v-nikiforov:** i need a copy right now  
**giacometti-c:** [eggplant] [peach]

**Author's Note:**

> probably my last update until the fall, comrades. i just had hand surgery three days ago. thank you for reading!


End file.
